Shaun wrote to Rob" "Do you remember this? It was the book that we learnt our Latin from and taught to us by Mr MacDonald as well as 'Birdie Edwards' who was also proficient in Greek. Along with stories of Perseus, the Primer had the stories of Hercules, The Argonauts and Ulysses. In class MacDonald would have the boys line against the wall and those of us who translated a correct sentence from Fabulae Fasciles would proceed to the top of the line until deposed by a bright spark, such as yourself, who was academicaly inclined. I was bloody hopeless in the subject but managed to keep somewhere in the middle of the line up but, on the rare occasion, have topped the queue in which case you must have been asleep fantasising about Rockfist Rogan in 'The Champion'. Best wishes Shaun "
   

  

Rob replied: "Dear Shaun, I had forgotten all about Ritchie... a name I came to hate, I now recall. But I loathed "The Shorter Latin Primer" even more! The only good it ever did me was when someone showed me his disfigured copy and I laughed myself nearly sick THE SHORTBREAD EATING PRIMER. Now I recall all too well the line of ascending geniuses or descending dolts. I was ever on the descend... of that I can assure you. It seems I managed to fool you all, as well as MacDonald. Since I was permanently in bottom place (I had privately given up all hope and refused interest in Latin by then), I needed a boost, so one day I looked up some very tricky words the day before and learned them. Just two. I remember them now! 'simulatque' and 'etiamtum'! I even recall the meanings, 'as soon as' and ' even then'. That is a large chunk of my present knowledge of Latin! So now you see why you thought I was one of the bright ones! Those two words carried me to top place, for about 20 minutes! When I went to Royal Liberty Grammar School, the headmaster let me in because I knew a bit of Latin vocab. and could still conjugate 'vulnero' ('I wound') active and passive, spoke posh and claimed to be both an off-break and leg-break bowler. He unadvisedly put me into the second year Latin class (the bright boys). They had just begun and my Latin degenerated as theirs improved. Cheers, Rob